Scarlet Feather (10 page)

It was still an odd feeling to drive up this small street of two-up, two-down houses, where she had been born and brought up. Her father had always told her proudly how he had moved their belongings in using a handcart, and now Cathy would drive in casually in her white van or her husband’s Volvo. Like looking at your past from a great distance, where everything had changed and yet in other ways nothing had changed at all. A place where her mother still strove to please the unpleasable Hannah Mitchell, even though she had long since ceased to work for her. Where her mother even at this stage would be in some kind of awe of these terrible poor children because their name was Mitchell. Oh, please may nothing awful have happened. May her mother not have cleaned their shoes, or her father cleaned them out of their pocket money.

The twins were alone in the kitchen, staring at the oven. The table and all their own clothes seemed to be covered with flour. They had made pastry, they said, because that was all there was to do here, and Muttie’s wife had helped them make a steak and kidney pie which they were going to take home with them because the shoemaker’s children were never shed.

‘Shod,’ corrected Cathy.

‘Shed, shod, yeah, whatever,’ Simon said.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ Cathy asked.

She had loved standing at that very table, helping her mother to cook.

‘Not much,’ Simon said arrogantly.

‘He thinks it’s not men’s work,’ Maud explained.

‘It’s just I didn’t expect to be doing this. We don’t do this at home,’ Simon complained.

‘It’s always good to learn things,’ Cathy said, wanting to slap him. Her kind mother had taught them to make a pie, and all he could do was complain. ‘What did you learn today?’

I learned you need sharp knives to cut up the meat. Have you got any sharp knives for your waitressing business?’

‘Catering business, actually. Yes, I do have sharp knives, thank you Simon.’

‘Muttie’s wife has a great way to put salt and pepper in the flour,’ Maud began. ‘You shake it all up in a paper bag together, did you know that?’ she asked Cathy.

‘Yes, Mam taught me that too,’ Cathy said.

I never knew that before,’ Simon said, as if it were somehow a suspect way of doing things.

‘You never made pastry before until Muttie’s wife showed us,’ Maud said scathingly.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake call her Lizzie,’ cried Cathy, at the end of her tether.

‘We didn’t know her name, you see,’ Maud explained, startled.

‘She told us she used to work for Aunt Hannah as a sort of servant or cleaner or something,’ Simon said. ‘And we told her that we hated Aunt Hannah and that she hated us.’

‘I’m sure your aunt Hannah doesn’t hate you, you must have got that wrong,’ Cathy murmured.

‘No, I think she does, otherwise why would we be at Muttie and Lizzie’s place making steak and kidney pie, instead of Oaklands?’ Simon spoke as if the whole thing were totally obvious.

‘Anyway,’ Maud added, ‘we told her that this is better in a lot of ways than Oaklands and we said that we could come again tomorrow.’

Cathy looked at them in disbelief. What amazingly self-possessed, confident children. They were sure of their welcome anywhere, free to criticise and comment. That’s what being a Mitchell did for you. They watched her face as if trying to read her expression. She must remind herself that they were only nine, that their father had left home and their mother had been taken into a psychiatric hospital. Their brother was hopeless. This wasn’t the best of times.

‘We did say it to them,’ Maud said.

‘Say what?’ Cathy asked.

‘That we were going to keep coming here until things got back
to
normal at The Beeches,’ Simon explained.

‘And what did they say?’

‘Muttie said that he didn’t have any problem with it, and his wife Lizzie said that it would all depend on Aunt Hannah.’

‘Where are they now?’ Cathy asked fearfully. Was there any possibility that these two demented children had driven her unfortunate parents so mad they had left home?

‘Muttie said he was slipping out to the shoemaker…’ Maud began.

‘Bookmaker,’ Simon corrected.

‘Well, some kind of maker anyway, and his wife
Lizzie is
upstairs on the phone because her daughter telephoned her from Chicago.’

Cathy sat down in the kitchen. It could be a lot worse, she supposed.

‘You must not interrupt us, we have to watch as it goes golden brown,’ Simon said.

‘Who is the bookmaker, and why was he never shod?’ Maud wanted to know.

‘Is he coming to dinner with us? Is that why we made the pie?’ Simon “wondered.

Cathy felt very, very tired, but she remembered asking her aunt Geraldine things years ago, and the really satisfying thing was that Geraldine had always tried to answer her.

‘It’s a sort of saying, really. What Mam meant was that in a shoemaker’s house the man is making so many pairs of shoes for other people that he never has time to make any for his own children, and they go barefoot.’

‘Why don’t they get shoes in the shops?’ Maud asked.

‘But is he coming to dinner or is he not?’ Simon insisted on knowing.

‘Not tonight,’ Cathy said wearily. ‘Sometimes the shoemaker will come to dinner, I hope, but not tonight.’

Neil’s court case was all over the papers; the fight had been won for the moment. Prominent civil rights leaders had come to court, there was talk of a big protest march, a stay had been given for three months, which was longer than they had hoped. Cathy had time only for a quick glance at the evening paper as she settled the children in the kitchen with instructions on how to set the table, and grabbed a shower. Neil had left a note saying he had gone out for wine and ice cream. She was just pulling on a clean T-shirt and jeans when he came into the bedroom.

‘Those two told me they had made a pie – are they serious?’

I think my mother made it, actually. Well done, I saw in the paper you’re a hero. Was he delighted?’

‘He was more stunned than anything else I think, but the great thing is we’ve mobilised a lot of support. It won’t be so easy for them the next time, they can’t bundle him out overnight any more.’ Neil’s face was animated and excited. He would have talked for ever. Cathy hung her head slightly. Her own day seemed suddenly very trivial in comparison.

He stroked her cheek. ‘You look lovely, you know. What a pity we don’t have time to…’

I don’t think we’ll have time for that sort of thing in the foreseeable future. By the way, Maud told my mother that we mate once a month.’

‘God, did she? What an extraordinary thing to say.’

‘That’s one of the mildest things they’ve said. Let’s not even think about it, let’s go and eat dinner and drink a great deal of wine and celebrate your win.’

Simon had the table set. ‘Are we sure the shoemaker isn’t coming?’ he asked, slightly worried.

‘The shoemaker?’ Neil paused in drawing the cork from the bottle.

‘Don’t ask, please don’t ask,’ said Cathy.

‘Were the cookers suitable?’ Geraldine wanted to know next morning.

‘Perfect, we’re going to take two plus a fridge, a freezer, a deep-fat fryer and a lot of saucepans.’

‘Great stuff, was Tom delighted?’

‘Thrilled, we put reserve prices on things, they’ll ring tonight. I can’t go today as I have to be with the electricians. Feather and Company finally found an electrician who gets out of bed before midday, so I’m meeting him there in a few minutes. Tom’s out with other suppliers.’

‘Have you time for lunch? You could come to the hotel, they have some foreign chefs doing a buffet, you could steal a few ideas.’

‘I’d love it, Geraldine, but I haven’t a minute, we have to meet the insurance broker again, fill in a planning application, change of nature of premises, and there’s a good January sale on. I thought I might have a quick hunt for curtain material before we meet James Byrne again up at the premises.’

‘You’re killing yourself.’

‘Early days, busy days.’ Cathy sounded cheerful.

‘And why are these awful children not going back to their own people?’ Geraldine was disapproving.

‘There
are
no own people, their father has been sighted in Leeds, and this has sent their mother back to the funny farm.’

‘And what in God’s name do my sister and her capable, energetic husband do with the twins from hell all day?’

‘You know Mam, she’ll get neighbours to keep them entertained when she’s out working, and she’s teaching them to cook.’

‘That sounds sensible, they’ll need someone to cook if they’re to go back to that house,’ said Geraldine.

I
know
, Geraldine, but what can we do?’ Cathy wailed.

‘And what does Neil say? They’re
his
responsibility.’

‘He says we can’t let them go into a home.’

‘So they’re in your mother’s home instead.’

‘And ours at night,’ Cathy said with spirit.

‘I bet that’s a barrel of laughs,’ Geraldine said.

‘Neil finds it very hard to work while they’re there. Don’t worry, Geraldine; it’s not going to last for ever.’

‘Mr Feather not with you?’ James Byrne asked when Cathy arrived to meet him, as agreed, on site in the late afternoon. The noise of drilling was loud in their ears.

‘I wonder, could you call him Tom?’ Cathy knew that she sounded tired, and hoped that the bright smile somehow compensated for it.

‘Certainly, if you wish,’ the voice was polite.

‘It’s just that we have so much on our minds that when you say Mr Feather, I immediately think you’re talking about his father, who’s inside worrying his guts out in case the Maguires will fly back from England in a helicopter and settle on his head with all kinds of restraining orders.’

I have put his mind at rest about that.’

‘How on earth did you do that?’

I let him talk to the Maguires in person on the phone.’

This was more than Cathy and Tom had been able to do. But she knew better than to cross-question this strange, reserved man.

‘Good,’ she said briskly. ‘That explains all the activity in the background. Now, would you like to see what we’ve done so far?’

‘And Tom Feather?’

‘Will not be here today. We have to divide the work up as we can’t both be everywhere. Is it all right if it’s just me?’

She looked tired and wan. Unexpectedly he leaned over and patted her hand. ‘It’s just fine, Cathy,’ he said.

‘Mam, I really owe you for this,’ Cathy said, falling into a chair at the kitchen table in St Jarlath’s Crescent.

‘Not at all, they kept your father out of the betting shop.’ Lizzie poured them mugs of tea.

‘You mean he took them out for the day?’

‘To the zoo, no less. They’d never been there, could you credit it?’

‘And Da took them there with his own money?’

‘There was a bit of a good flutter yesterday, apparently.’

‘And do they have any more manners today?’

‘Not really. But Cathy, you wouldn’t need to go commenting on that in front of the Mitchells.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Drawing away, there’s not a word out of them.’

Muttie had given them paper to draw their favourite animal at the zoo. Simon had ten drawings of snakes with their names printed underneath them. Maud had done six owls.

‘Muttie says he sees no reason why we couldn’t have an owl at home,’ she greeted Cathy.

‘He doesn’t? Maybe he could explain it to your mother and father when they get back to The Beeches.’

‘They might never be back,’ Simon said cheerfully. ‘But Muttie says that there might be more of a problem with snakes.’

‘There might be, all right. But excuse me, what do you mean, exactly, they might never be back?’

‘Well, there’s no word of our father, and our mother’s nerves are pretty bad this time, I think.’

‘I see.’

Cathy went back to her mother in the kitchen. ‘What am I going to do, Mam?’

‘I’ll tell you one thing, a couple of days here and that is fine, but long-term you’re not doing yourself any favours taking those children in. Can’t you see it’s showing her up as well… as well as everything else?’

‘What do you mean, Mam? “As well as everything else?”’

‘Well, you know I’ve said it a thousand times already to you, all this setting up a business. People like that, Cathy, you know they expect you to be grateful and glad you married so well. You should be staying at home and making Neil a good wife.’

‘Oh, Mam, for God’s sake.’

‘No, listen to me for once, Cathy, I’m not as bright as you or as educated. I can’t talk back to people like you do, but I do know them. I’ve cleaned their floors, yes, but I listen to them talking and they’re not like us, we’re not like them.’

‘We are better than them, far, far better.’ Cathy’s eyes blazed.

‘Now don’t start…’

‘It’s you that started, Mam. Tell me what’s good about an old cow like Hannah Mitchell, pointing to the legs of chairs with her umbrella and making you go down on your hands and knees, throwing tea bags into a sink you had just cleaned, using good clean towels you had just washed and folded to mop up floors. Tell me what’s good about her, one thing good about a woman who won’t even take two unfortunate brats who are part of her husband’s family.’

‘Shush, Cathy, keep your voice down.’

‘No I will
not
keep my voice down, I hate that woman for the way she turned her back on them and I despise her husband, they’re his flesh and blood after all. I know they’re monsters and they’re both as daft as brushes but they’re not the worst, and it’s not
their
fault that everyone has abandoned them and nobody wants them.’ She broke off because of the frozen look on her mother’s face. It was indeed as she suspected. Simon and Maud stood behind her open-mouthed in the doorway, having heard every single word.

‘Hi, Lizzie. It’s Geraldine.’

‘Sorry, Ger, she’s just left.’

‘Who?’

‘Cathy. Didn’t you want to talk to her?’

‘No, I wanted to talk to you. How was she, by the way?’

‘Terrible, she lost her temper with me and started giving out about the Mitchells in front of those two harmless children. They heard it all.’